Final Fantasy XIII: Everything We Know

Share.

The must-read resource on Square Enix's ravenously anticipated RPG.

By John Tanaka

It's been three and a half years since Final Fantasy XIII first made its surprise appearance at E3 2006. The trailers, teaser websites, and teaser websites teasing trailers are at long last coming to an end. Final Fantasy XIII hits Japanese PS3s tomorrow, and we've got all the information Final Fantasy fans need that just can't wait for the March U.S. release date.

In Japan, the latest numerical Final Fantasy remains a PlayStation-only title. We in the United States, of course, will get the game on both the Xbox 360 and the PS3, like so:

Japan gets it like this:

To the left is the standard version of the game, priced at 9,240 yen (that's pretty standard pricing for major releases like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest). To the right is the Final Fantasy XIII Lighting Edition hardware bundle, which bundles the game with a special white, 250 gigabyte PS3. This is priced at 41,600 yen and is so incredibly rare that auctions are inching towards the thousands of dollars per unit.

Regardless of which version you get, the dual-layer 50 gigabyte disc containing Final Fantasy XIII will be the same. And what exactly is on that disc? That's why we're here.

Square Enix has been providing updates on Final Fantasy XIII to Japanese gamers through frequent appearances in such publications as Weekly Shounen Jump and Weekly Famitsu. More recently, the game was featured in a series of guide books detailing the story, characters, world, and basic gameplay systems.

We've gathered these key points together for this extensive pre-release preview. Read this to get the basics on Final Fantasy XIII so that you'll know your l'Cie from your fal'Cie when people around you are discussing XIII following tomorrow's launch.

First, turn the page for story and character details. Don't worry: everything that we write has been shared by Square Enix itself, so there shouldn't be any material that will spoil the story for you (of course, if you do want your experience to be totally fresh, skip to the third page for a look at the various areas of play).